The Uninhabitable Earth

The Uninhabitable Earth Plot Summary

Introduction

Throughout human history, we have faced many existential challenges, from plagues to world wars, but none quite like the climate crisis unfolding today. What makes this challenge unique is its truly planetary scale, affecting every living being regardless of nationality, wealth, or political belief. The story of climate change is not merely about rising temperatures or extreme weather events - it's a profound tale of human civilization's relationship with the natural world, a relationship that has transformed dramatically over the past two centuries. This historical journey takes us from the early scientific discoveries about greenhouse gases in the 19th century through the explosive growth of fossil capitalism, to our present moment of ecological tipping points and political paralysis. Along the way, we'll explore how economic systems, technological innovations, and cultural beliefs have shaped our response to mounting evidence of planetary change. By understanding climate change through this historical lens, we gain not just scientific knowledge but wisdom about human nature itself - our capacity for both extraordinary innovation and remarkable denial, our ability to both create and solve existential problems of our own making.

Chapter 1: Scientific Warnings: Early Knowledge and Ignored Signals (1850-1980)

The story of climate science begins not with modern environmental movements but in the laboratories of 19th-century Europe. In 1856, American scientist Eunice Foote conducted a simple experiment demonstrating that carbon dioxide trapped heat from the sun. Three years later, Irish physicist John Tyndall expanded on this work, establishing the fundamental science of the greenhouse effect. By 1896, Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius had calculated that doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide would raise global temperatures by several degrees - a remarkably accurate prediction made with pencil and paper calculations over a century ago. These early discoveries remained largely academic curiosities until the post-World War II period, when scientific capabilities expanded dramatically. In 1958, Charles David Keeling began continuous measurements of atmospheric carbon dioxide at Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii, creating what would become the famous "Keeling Curve" - the longest continuous record of CO₂ in the atmosphere. This steadily rising line, showing the annual breathing of the planet superimposed on a relentless upward trend, would become one of the most important scientific graphs ever created. By the late 1960s, the first computer models of global climate were being developed, with increasingly sophisticated projections of future warming. The 1970s marked a crucial turning point in climate awareness. In 1972, the United Nations held its first conference on the human environment in Stockholm, bringing environmental concerns onto the international agenda. Scientists from various disciplines began connecting their research, creating a more comprehensive understanding of Earth's climate system. By 1979, the U.S. National Academy of Sciences issued a report warning that doubling CO₂ concentrations would likely lead to 1.5-4.5°C of warming - a range remarkably similar to current estimates despite four decades of additional research. Perhaps most telling was what happened inside the fossil fuel industry during this period. Internal documents later revealed that companies like Exxon conducted sophisticated climate research in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Their scientists accurately predicted the warming we're experiencing today and warned executives about potential catastrophic impacts. These companies understood the science well enough to begin designing their offshore drilling platforms to accommodate rising sea levels, even while publicly questioning whether climate change was real. The tragedy of this early period is not that we lacked scientific understanding, but that this knowledge failed to translate into meaningful action. The temporal disconnect between cause and effect made climate change uniquely difficult to address - emissions today create consequences decades later, creating both scientific uncertainty and political challenges. As atmospheric scientist James Hansen would later observe, this time lag is perhaps the most dangerous aspect of climate change, allowing damage to accumulate invisibly until thresholds are crossed and impacts become unavoidable. By 1980, atmospheric CO₂ had risen from pre-industrial levels of 280 parts per million to over 335 ppm. The scientific foundation for understanding climate change was firmly established, but the political, economic, and cultural transformations needed to address it had barely begun. The warnings had been issued, but the most consequential decades of emissions still lay ahead - a period when humanity would add more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than in all previous human history combined.

Chapter 2: Fossil Capitalism: How Industrial Growth Transformed Earth's Climate

The marriage between fossil fuels and capitalism created the most transformative economic system in human history. Beginning with coal-powered steam engines in 18th century Britain, this relationship fundamentally altered humanity's relationship with energy. For the first time, economic growth became untethered from the limitations of muscle power, wind, and water. This unleashed unprecedented productivity and material prosperity, but also began the systematic transfer of carbon from underground deposits into the atmosphere at ever-accelerating rates. The post-World War II economic boom represented a critical inflection point in this relationship. Between 1950 and 1970, global carbon emissions more than doubled as consumer capitalism spread across the developed world. The American dream of suburban homes, private automobiles, and abundant consumer goods became the template for "development" worldwide. Oil companies like Exxon, Shell, and BP grew into some of the most powerful corporations in history, while entire national economies became structured around fossil fuel extraction and consumption. This economic model delivered remarkable material prosperity but at an environmental cost that remained largely invisible on quarterly balance sheets. The global economic order that emerged from this history created powerful path dependencies that continue to shape our climate response today. Nations built infrastructure designed specifically for fossil fuels, from highways to electricity grids to industrial agriculture. Financial systems became deeply intertwined with fossil assets, with pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, and insurance companies holding trillions in fossil fuel investments. And perhaps most importantly, political systems grew dependent on fossil fuel interests for campaign contributions, tax revenues, and geopolitical power. This created a system remarkably resistant to change even as scientific evidence mounted that the very foundation of modern prosperity was undermining the climate stability that made it possible. The oil shocks of the 1970s briefly suggested an alternative path. As prices spiked and supplies seemed uncertain, investments in renewable energy and efficiency accelerated. President Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the White House roof and called for a national transition away from fossil fuel dependence. But this moment proved fleeting. When oil prices fell in the 1980s, political and economic priorities shifted back toward fossil-fueled growth. The Reagan administration removed the White House solar panels, cut renewable energy research budgets, and embraced a narrative of unlimited fossil resources. This period represented a critical missed opportunity to begin a gradual transition when emissions were still relatively low. The globalization of fossil capitalism accelerated in the 1990s and 2000s as rapid industrialization in China, India, and other developing economies followed the carbon-intensive development path pioneered by Western nations. The fall of the Soviet Union opened new regions to resource extraction, while trade agreements facilitated the offshoring of emissions from wealthy consumers to manufacturing centers abroad. Global carbon emissions, which had briefly plateaued during the 1970s energy crisis, resumed their exponential growth. By 2010, humans were releasing over 30 billion tons of CO₂ annually - more than double the rate in 1970 and nearly five times pre-World War II levels. What makes this history particularly consequential is how it embedded carbon dependence into the material and cultural fabric of modern life. Fossil fuels don't just power our economy; they shape our identities, aspirations, and imagination of what constitutes "the good life." The freedom of personal automobility, the convenience of air travel, the abundance of consumer goods - these defining features of modern prosperity remain tightly coupled to carbon emissions. Addressing climate change thus requires not just technological substitution but a profound reimagining of prosperity itself - a challenge that goes far beyond the technical aspects of energy transition.

Chapter 3: Ecological Tipping Points: Natural Systems Under Unprecedented Strain

The Earth's ecological systems are not experiencing climate change as isolated phenomena but as compounding, cascading crises. Rising temperatures represent just one dimension of a multifaceted ecological transformation that is unfolding faster than many natural systems can adapt. What makes the current warming particularly dangerous is not just its magnitude but its unprecedented speed - occurring at least ten times faster than natural climate transitions in Earth's recent history. This rapid pace leaves ecosystems with little time for evolutionary adaptation, creating the potential for abrupt and irreversible changes. Perhaps most concerning are the various feedback loops that could accelerate warming beyond human control. As Arctic permafrost thaws, it releases methane and carbon dioxide previously locked in frozen soils for thousands of years. The Arctic is warming nearly four times faster than the global average, creating the potential for massive additional greenhouse gas releases. Similarly, as ice sheets melt, they reduce the planet's reflectivity, causing more solar radiation to be absorbed rather than reflected back to space. As forests burn with increasing frequency and intensity, they release stored carbon and reduce the biosphere's capacity to remove carbon from the atmosphere. These self-reinforcing cycles could potentially push the Earth system toward "tipping points" - thresholds beyond which change becomes self-perpetuating and potentially irreversible on human timescales. The ocean, which has absorbed approximately 90% of excess heat and 30% of human carbon emissions, shows alarming signs of stress. Ocean acidification, the "evil twin" of climate change, occurs as seawater absorbs carbon dioxide, fundamentally altering marine chemistry. This threatens coral reefs, shellfish, and entire food webs in ways that ripple through ecosystems and human communities dependent on them. Marine heatwaves have become more frequent and intense, causing mass coral bleaching events that transform vibrant underwater ecosystems into barren underwater deserts. The Great Barrier Reef, the world's largest living structure, has experienced five mass bleaching events since 1998, with insufficient recovery time between episodes. Terrestrial ecosystems face equally profound disruptions. Warming temperatures are shifting climate zones poleward and upslope faster than many species can migrate. Plants flower before their pollinators arrive; migratory birds find their food sources depleted when they reach traditional breeding grounds; predator-prey relationships fall out of balance as species respond differently to changing conditions. In tropical forests, trees are dying at accelerating rates as temperatures exceed their physiological limits. Meanwhile, insect populations - the foundation of many terrestrial food webs - have declined dramatically worldwide, with climate change interacting with habitat loss and pesticide use to create what some scientists call an "insect apocalypse." The cascading nature of these ecological failures challenges our compartmentalized approach to environmental problems. We can no longer address climate change, biodiversity loss, and pollution as separate issues. They are interconnected facets of a planetary system under unprecedented strain from human activities. This understanding has given rise to the concept of "planetary boundaries" - thresholds in Earth systems that, if crossed, could destabilize the relatively benign conditions that have allowed human civilization to flourish over the past 10,000 years. Climate change represents just one of nine such boundaries, alongside biodiversity loss, nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, freshwater use, land system change, ocean acidification, atmospheric aerosol loading, chemical pollution, and stratospheric ozone depletion. What makes these ecological tipping points particularly insidious is how they interact with human systems. As natural buffers degrade, societies become more vulnerable to climate impacts. When mangrove forests are destroyed, coastal communities lose natural protection against storm surges. When soil health deteriorates, agricultural systems become more susceptible to drought. When pollinators decline, food production becomes more precarious. These connections between ecological resilience and human security highlight the fundamental flaw in treating nature as separate from human welfare - a conceptual division that has characterized much of modern economic thinking but becomes increasingly untenable as planetary boundaries are approached or exceeded.

Chapter 4: The Politics of Denial: Economic Interests versus Scientific Evidence

The gap between scientific understanding and political action on climate change represents one of the most consequential failures of modern governance. By the early 1990s, the scientific evidence for human-caused climate change was already compelling enough to establish the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, signed at the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. Yet three decades later, global emissions continue to rise, and the political will for transformative action remains elusive in many of the world's largest economies. This disconnect between knowledge and action has deep political and economic roots. The organized climate denial movement emerged as a sophisticated political operation in the 1990s, funded significantly by fossil fuel interests and ideologically aligned foundations. Drawing on tactics pioneered by the tobacco industry, this movement didn't need to prove climate science wrong - it merely needed to manufacture enough doubt to delay action. Internal documents reveal that many fossil fuel companies privately accepted the science while publicly working to undermine it. A 1998 memo from the American Petroleum Institute outlined a plan to ensure that "climate change becomes a non-issue" by emphasizing "uncertainties" in climate science. This campaign succeeded in transforming what should have been a universal human concern into a partisan political issue in several key countries, particularly the United States. The effectiveness of climate denial stemmed partly from exploiting genuine uncertainties that exist in any complex scientific field. Climate scientists' professional caution in expressing certainty became a weapon used against them. When researchers acknowledged the limits of their models or the range of possible outcomes, denial advocates seized on these nuances to suggest the entire foundation of climate science was questionable. This strategy was particularly effective because humans naturally prefer comfortable certainties to uncomfortable probabilities. As psychologist Daniel Kahneman has shown, we tend to simplify complex risks, especially when addressing them requires changes to familiar ways of life. Beyond organized denial, political systems worldwide have struggled with the temporal mismatch between climate change and electoral cycles. The most severe consequences of today's emissions will unfold over decades and centuries, while political incentives focus on much shorter timeframes. This created a persistent bias toward delay and incremental action. Each year of inaction made the eventual necessary transitions more difficult and disruptive, creating a vicious cycle where the political costs of meaningful action continually increased. As climate scientist James Hansen testified to Congress in 1988, "The greenhouse effect is real, it is coming, and effects will be significant, but the delay between cause and effect makes it impractical to wait for the impacts to be obvious before taking action." The international politics of climate change added another layer of complexity. Historical emissions came predominantly from developed nations, while future emissions growth was projected to come largely from developing economies. This created tensions around responsibility, capability, and equity that complicated international negotiations. The principle of "common but differentiated responsibilities" acknowledged these disparities but struggled to translate into effective cooperative action in a world of sovereign nation-states with divergent interests. The Kyoto Protocol of 1997 attempted to address this by placing binding emissions targets on developed nations while exempting developing countries, but this approach ultimately failed to gain universal support, with the United States notably refusing to ratify the agreement. The politics of climate change reveal deeper tensions in democratic governance. Market-oriented democracies excel at delivering short-term consumer benefits but struggle with long-term collective challenges that require immediate costs for distant benefits. As political scientist Thomas Homer-Dixon argues, "We're facing a crisis of governance... Our institutions were designed for a world of simpler problems." This institutional mismatch has led some to question whether liberal democracies can effectively address climate change, pointing to China's ability to rapidly deploy renewable energy through centralized planning. However, history suggests that democratic systems, while sometimes slower to act, ultimately produce more durable and legitimate policies when they do respond. The challenge is not democracy itself but creating democratic institutions capable of representing the interests of future generations and distant populations affected by climate decisions made today.

Chapter 5: Technological Solutions: Promises, Progress and Limitations

Throughout the climate crisis, technological optimism has offered a seductive narrative: human ingenuity will develop solutions that allow us to maintain our current lifestyles without environmental harm. This faith in technological salvation has deep cultural roots, particularly in Western societies shaped by centuries of scientific and industrial progress. From nuclear fusion to carbon capture, from geoengineering to vertical farming, technological fixes promise to resolve the climate dilemma without requiring fundamental changes to economic systems or consumption patterns. Renewable energy represents the most successful climate technology story to date. Solar panel costs have plummeted by over 90% since 2010, while wind power has similarly become cost-competitive with fossil fuels in many markets. This dramatic cost reduction, driven by a combination of research investment, policy support, and manufacturing scale, has transformed the global energy landscape faster than most experts predicted. In many regions, building new renewable energy capacity is now cheaper than operating existing fossil fuel plants. This economic transformation has begun to drive emissions reductions in the electricity sector, with global coal use potentially peaking in the mid-2010s. Battery technology has undergone a similar revolution, with costs falling by nearly 90% since 2010. This has enabled both grid-scale energy storage to manage intermittent renewable generation and the rapid development of electric vehicles. Major automakers worldwide have announced plans to phase out internal combustion engines, with electric vehicles projected to dominate new car sales in many markets by the 2030s. These technological developments suggest that decarbonizing electricity and light-duty transportation - which together account for roughly 40% of global emissions - may be achievable with existing technologies. However, technological progress faces significant limitations when confronting the full scale of the climate challenge. Many hard-to-decarbonize sectors like aviation, shipping, cement, and steel production lack ready technological substitutes. The materials required for clean energy technologies - lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements - create their own environmental and social challenges. And perhaps most importantly, the deployment of even proven technologies at the necessary scale requires overcoming enormous infrastructure inertia, financial barriers, and political resistance. As energy researcher Vaclav Smil has documented, historical energy transitions typically unfold over many decades, while climate timelines demand much faster change. The allure of future technological breakthroughs has also functioned as a form of psychological and political procrastination. Carbon capture and storage technologies, for example, have featured prominently in climate scenarios for decades despite limited real-world deployment. The IPCC's climate models increasingly rely on negative emissions technologies that barely exist today, particularly bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). This technological optimism allows political leaders to set ambitious long-term targets while postponing difficult decisions about immediate emissions reductions. As climate scientist Kevin Anderson argues, "Today's policymakers are incompetent to deliver the revolutionary change in energy use, practices and wider social values that climate change demands... so they hide behind the analytical fig leaf of technological utopias." The tension between technological optimism and technological realism represents one of the central dilemmas of climate policy. Innovation is undoubtedly essential for addressing climate change, but it cannot substitute for the immediate deployment of existing solutions and the structural changes needed to reduce emissions across all sectors. The most balanced approach recognizes both the promise of technology and its limitations, pursuing innovation while acknowledging that waiting for perfect solutions risks crossing irreversible thresholds. As environmentalist Bill McKibben puts it, "The technology we need most badly is the technology to change our politics, our economics, and some of our habits of thought."

Chapter 6: Climate Geopolitics: Migration, Resources, and International Relations

Climate change is redrawing the human geography of our planet, forcing a reconsideration of the relationship between place, identity, and security. Rising seas, expanding deserts, and intensifying disasters are making parts of the Earth increasingly uninhabitable. The World Bank estimates that without decisive climate action, over 140 million people could be displaced within their own countries by 2050, while other projections suggest cross-border climate migration could eventually involve hundreds of millions of people. This human movement represents perhaps the most profound geopolitical consequence of a warming planet. This human movement has already begun. In Bangladesh, saltwater intrusion is driving farmers from coastal areas toward already overcrowded cities. In Central America, persistent drought has contributed to agricultural failures that push families northward. In the Pacific Islands, entire nations face existential threats from rising seas, raising unprecedented questions about what happens to a country's sovereignty, culture, and identity when its physical territory disappears. The Syrian civil war - exacerbated by climate-linked drought that displaced farmers and strained urban resources - offered a preview of how climate stresses can contribute to political instability, mass displacement, and international tensions. Water scarcity represents a particularly acute geopolitical challenge. Over 260 river basins cross international boundaries, creating complex interdependencies as upstream nations control resources vital to downstream neighbors. From the Nile to the Mekong, climate change is intensifying water stress while undermining traditional management systems based on historical flow patterns. The Indus River system, which supports hundreds of millions of people across Pakistan and India, faces unprecedented pressure as Himalayan glaciers retreat and rainfall patterns shift. Military planners increasingly identify water conflicts as potential flashpoints for future international tensions, with former CIA Director James Woolsey warning that water scarcity could become "the wellspring of future conflicts." Resource competition extends beyond water to food systems, energy supplies, and critical minerals. Climate change is already reducing agricultural productivity in many regions, with each degree of warming projected to decrease global grain yields by approximately 10%. Meanwhile, the transition to clean energy creates new resource dependencies, particularly for minerals like lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements essential for batteries and renewable technologies. These resources are concentrated in relatively few countries, creating potential for new forms of resource nationalism and geopolitical leverage. China's dominance in rare earth processing, for instance, represents a strategic advantage in clean energy manufacturing that other nations are racing to counter. Yet climate change is also generating new forms of international cooperation. The Paris Agreement, despite its limitations, represented an unprecedented global acknowledgment of shared vulnerability and responsibility. Climate diplomacy has created venues where traditional adversaries find common interests. And transnational networks of cities, businesses, and civil society organizations are developing climate solutions that transcend national boundaries. These emerging governance structures suggest possibilities for reimagining international relations around shared ecological challenges rather than merely competing national interests. The geopolitics of climate finance represent another evolving dimension of international relations. The commitment by developed nations to provide $100 billion annually to support climate action in developing countries remains partially unfulfilled, creating tensions in international negotiations. Meanwhile, China's Belt and Road Initiative has become a major vehicle for infrastructure investment worldwide, with significant implications for global emissions trajectories. As climate impacts intensify, questions of compensation for loss and damage - who pays for the consequences of a warming largely caused by wealthy nations but disproportionately affecting poorer ones - will likely become increasingly contentious in international forums. Perhaps most fundamentally, climate change challenges the Westphalian system of sovereign nation-states that has defined international relations for centuries. Atmospheric carbon dioxide recognizes no borders; climate impacts cascade across national boundaries; and effective responses require coordination across jurisdictions and timescales that existing international institutions struggle to achieve. This mismatch between planetary problems and national governance structures represents one of the central challenges of the Anthropocene era. As political scientist Simon Dalby argues, "Climate change is not just another issue to be added to the diplomatic agenda; it requires a fundamental rethinking of what security means in an age of planetary transformation."

Chapter 7: Beyond Crisis: Reimagining Human Civilization in the Anthropocene

The climate crisis demands more than technical fixes or policy adjustments - it requires a fundamental reimagining of human civilization's relationship with the natural world. The Anthropocene - our new geological epoch defined by human impacts on Earth systems - represents not just a scientific classification but a profound philosophical challenge. How do we create meaningful, just, and sustainable human societies on a planet we have irrevocably altered? This question transcends traditional political divisions and disciplinary boundaries, touching on our deepest values and assumptions about progress, prosperity, and purpose. Indigenous and non-Western perspectives offer alternative frameworks for understanding human relationships with nature. Many traditional cultures maintained stable, sustainable relationships with their environments for thousands of years - achievements increasingly relevant as we confront the limits of industrial civilization. These perspectives often emphasize reciprocity with natural systems rather than dominion over them, suggesting pathways beyond the extractive logic that created the climate crisis. As Potawatomi scientist Robin Wall Kimmerer writes, "In the indigenous worldview, a healthy landscape is understood to be whole and generous enough to be able to sustain its partners. It engages in reciprocal relationships in which humans and land can be mutual healers and benefactors." These approaches don't reject technology or material wellbeing but embed them within ethical frameworks that prioritize balance and regeneration. The transition to a post-carbon society offers opportunities to address multiple crises simultaneously. Well-designed climate policies can reduce inequality, improve public health, enhance community resilience, and create meaningful employment. Urban redesign for climate resilience can simultaneously create more livable cities with expanded green spaces, improved air quality, and stronger social connections. Regenerative agriculture practices that sequester carbon can also rebuild soil health, enhance biodiversity, improve water management, and produce more nutritious food. These "multisolving" approaches recognize that climate change is not an isolated environmental problem but a symptom of deeper systemic imbalances that require holistic responses. Cultural transformation represents perhaps the most challenging yet essential dimension of climate action. The dominant narratives of modern consumer capitalism - equating happiness with material consumption, defining success through economic growth, and treating nature as a resource to be exploited - have proven ecologically unsustainable and psychologically unsatisfying. Alternative cultural frameworks are emerging that emphasize sufficiency rather than endless growth, quality of relationships rather than quantity of possessions, and intergenerational responsibility rather than short-term gratification. These shifts in values and aspirations cannot be legislated or engineered but emerge through artistic expression, spiritual practice, educational innovation, and community experimentation. The climate crisis also forces a reconsideration of justice across multiple dimensions. Intergenerational justice demands that current decisions account for impacts on future generations who cannot represent themselves in today's political processes. International justice requires acknowledging historical responsibility for emissions while ensuring all nations have pathways to sustainable prosperity. Intersectional justice recognizes that climate impacts and transition challenges affect communities differently based on race, class, gender, and other factors. These justice dimensions aren't peripheral concerns but central to creating climate solutions that are both effective and legitimate. Perhaps most profoundly, the climate crisis invites us to reconsider what constitutes a good human life and a flourishing civilization. The fossil-fueled consumer society of the 20th century delivered remarkable material prosperity but at unsustainable ecological cost and with diminishing returns for human wellbeing. Research consistently shows that beyond meeting basic needs, additional material consumption contributes little to happiness or life satisfaction. This opens space for reimagining prosperity around values that aren't dependent on endless material throughput: meaningful work, strong communities, vibrant cultural expression, connection with nature, and sense of purpose. As economist Kate Raworth suggests in her "Doughnut Economics" model, the challenge is creating societies that meet everyone's needs within planetary boundaries - a vision of prosperity that's both more inclusive and more sustainable than the growth-dependent models of the industrial era.

Summary

The climate crisis represents the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced - not merely an environmental problem but a comprehensive threat to civilization as we know it. What makes this crisis unique is its all-encompassing nature: it transforms our relationship with the natural world, reshapes economic and political systems, challenges technological optimism, collapses narratives of inevitable progress, and forces profound ethical reckonings. Unlike previous challenges that affected particular regions or populations, climate change will touch every person on Earth, though its impacts will be distributed with cruel injustice. Yet within this crisis lies opportunity for transformation. The same recognition that our current systems are unsustainable opens space for creating more just, resilient alternatives. This doesn't mean technological salvation will rescue us without difficult choices - the pace and scale of necessary change demand immediate, dramatic action across all sectors of society. But it does mean that responding to climate change isn't merely about preventing catastrophe; it's about reimagining human civilization in ways that honor ecological limits while enhancing human flourishing. The path forward requires both clear-eyed acknowledgment of the dangers we face and the moral courage to create new possibilities amid unprecedented challenges. As historian Timothy Snyder reminds us, "History does not repeat, but it does instruct." The climate crisis may be unprecedented, but the human capacity for transformation in the face of existential challenges has deep historical roots that can guide us through the difficult decades ahead.

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David Wallace-Wells

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